Portland, OR-based quintet Nux Vomica have been together since 2003, when they formed in the Baltimore underground, an offshoot of anarcho-punk act Wake Up On Fire (who broke up a year after the formation of Nux Vomica, before the latter band relocated to Cascadia). The band’s name is basically a synonym for strychnine, and their self-titled 2014 LP was their third full-length release, following 2007’s A Civilized World and 2009’s Asleep In The Ashes. Anyway, they’ve been around for more than a decade, so I’m kind of embarrassed to admit I hadn’t heard of them till this year. But I spent a whole lot of 2014 listening to Nux Vomica. Their self-titled album comprises three songs, which range from roughly 12 to 20 minutes each, and over the course of those three songs, the band delivers one of the most enveloping, transporting, and aurally satisfying listening experiences I can remember. Rhythmically and texturally, Nux Vomica (the album) has an epic breadth, with hints of melodic death metal, doom, crust punk, ambient, sludge, and hardcore. It is generously melodic — it is very, very catchy — and it traverses deep valleys of post-rock. It also seethes and rages; in one of the most immediately audible lines in album opener “Sanity Is For The Passive,” vocalist Just Dave screams, “We stopped watching the news/ ’cause we couldn’t take it anymore.” I hope for their sake they’ve stuck with that policy. Watching the news in 2014 was enough to cause meltdowns in even the most dispassionate viewers. Nux Vomica was a perfect soundtrack for such brain-burning fury. –Michael [LISTEN]